A community of EUSD parents

Encinitas yoga appeal

It’s now official…. last week attorney Dean Broyles filed a Notice of Appeal in the EUSD yoga case. The appellate process will run well into 2014 and we will keep you updated along the way. For a glimpse of the impassioned irrationality which has gripped the yoga opponents, I share with you this excerpt from an email sent to members of the EUSD school board by an anti-yoga parent:

“I just returned from the presentation by Dean Broyles and was absolutely convicted and astonished at how we as Christians are being blinded by Satan.

“Yoga is without any question anti-Christ and I was thinking of you during the entire presentation.

“We heard a mother who is at a school where yoga is now offered at recess to any child who wants it, and she described children on field trips, in buses and on the playground performing the yoga positions on their own. This is what I talked about…indoctrinating and opening an evil spiritual world that public schools are and should be prohibited from forcing on these innocent defenseless children!

“It is a blatant violation of their innocence to protect them from religious indoctrination and a blatant violation of our Constitution!

“. . . I earnestly pray that you [school board members] will discuss this e-mail together and pray about it!!!

“I honestly fear for your salvation, and in no way am I placing myself as judge, but after learning what was just presented I know that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob will be holding to account anyone who is held responsible for leading innocent children astray!

“It is certain that this yoga program is absolutely doing that!”

There’s truly no point in arguing with these folks. Many are so blinded by fear that they fail to see the irony in their position. They view the U.S. Constitution as a Christian document and urge the school board to be guided by religious beliefs – so long as those beliefs align with their own.

Fortunately, most members of our community are not so closed-minded. YES! families include people of all faiths, including many devout Christians who recognize that the EUSD yoga program is exercise – and nothing more. Students stretching on busses and playgrounds should be viewed as a good thing…. not as evidence of an evil agenda at work. No kids are being led astray.

Several of you have posed a very good question: In order to end the yoga debate why doesn’t EUSD simply change the name of the fitness program from “yoga” to something else, like “stretching”? That would seem to be a perfectly reasonable compromise…. but not to Mr. Broyles.

In fact, Broyles has argued that if EUSD were to change the name it would simply be an act of “camouflage” designed to conceal the true Hindu agenda at work. Broyles believes such “camouflage” is the among the District’s most sinister tactics as it fools folks into believing that acts are innocuous when they actually have religious significance. In support of such position, Broyles has pointed to the District’s reference to a sitting position known as “criss-cross applesauce”. [We called it by the less politically-correct name “Indian style” when I was a kid.] Broyles claims EUSD engages in “camouflage” when it uses such a kid-friendly term for what is actually yoga’s lotus position.

As mentioned in our last post, there’s no point arguing with these folks. Logic and reason are no match for religious zealotry.